I didn’t plan anything special for 2021 as far as birding was concerned. It was just another year of slow birding, i.e. taking it easy and not chasing rarities across Skåne (Scania). Of course, I did twitch a few birds in 2021 that were “low hanging fruits”, so to say, the most recent being the Great Grey Owl (Lappuggla) at Värnhem in December that elicited a collective jaw drop from the entire Malmö birding community.
But let me start from the beginning, 2021 began with two new species to my Scanian list that were observed in the same day, January 3rd: Little Bunting (Dvärgsparv) and Greater Spotted Eagle (Större skrikörn) at Börringe. Both birds were overwintering at their respective locations and luckily they were still around when I got back from my holiday. January continued to produce good birds, including Lapland Bunting (Lappsparv) at Norra Hamnen and a Caspian Gull (Kaspisk trut) at Pildammsparken.
Spring brought with it a mega in the form of a Black-browed Albatross (Svartbrynad albatross) that chose the Öresund as a feeding area for a couple of days before returning to the North Sea. That was only the fourth Swedish record for the species. Two other spring highlights were a King Eider (Praktejder) on passage at Scaniaparken and a Eurasian Spoonbill (Skedstork) at Tygelsjö. The summer was rather quiet except for a Little Egret (Silkeshäger) showed up at Bunkeflostrand and provided pretty good views.
Fall was, predictably, a great season with quite a few rare to very rare species visiting Malmö. The season began with a bird that I had been hoping to see, a Pallid Harrier (Stäpphök) at Tygelsjö. Other highlights included a Rustic Bunting (Videsparv) showed up at Lagunen, and a Long-tailed Duck (Alfågel), which is rather regular offshore, decided to hang around Klagshamns flooded limestone quarry and provide point-blank views. While I was guiding a couple of people in Klagshamn, a Gyrfalcon (Jaktfalk) flew by, which infused a bit of excitement into the birding walk. Finally, a Dusky Warbler (Brunsångare) was playing hide-and-seek with eager twitchers at Ribersborg in the late fall.
In total, I added a 28 new species to my Scanian list in 2021, taking it to 214 species seen in the province since I started keeping a list in January 2016.
For 2022, I’ll follow the same recipe of taking it easy, but I can’t help but aim for 200 😉 Another resolution I have is to (finally) pay more attention to gulls instead of ignoring them 🙃
